The Malta Maritime Museum occupies the old naval bakery building at the waterfront — a vast, elegant structure built by the Knights in the eighteenth century to supply bread to the fleet. The collection inside is one of the more engaging in Malta: ship models, navigational instruments, figureheads, cannons, and an extraordinary display of decorated rowing galleys that gives a vivid sense of the naval power that the Knights of St. John wielded at the height of their influence.
Malta's entire history is essentially maritime — an island that controlled a critical deep-water harbor at the center of the Mediterranean. The museum traces that history from the Phoenicians and Romans through the Arab period, the Norman kingdom, the Knights, British rule, and Malta's development as an independent state. The building itself is part of the experience: the original stone vaulting is intact, and the scale of the bakery reminds you of what it meant to provision a fleet before the age of steam. Allow two hours; the collection is large and well-labeled.